"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold" -W. B. Yeats

Tag Archives: Christian

This past Sunday was the third of the month; in my parish, that means the deacon, rather than the priest, speaks the Homily. For anyone who doesn’t know, in a Catholic mass the Homily occurs after the three Bible readings. In the Homily, the priest or deacon tries to explain or add insight to what we had just heard. Usually, I don’t particularly like when the deacon at our church does the Homily. He’s not terrible, he just utilizes the same writing technique every time, which, as a writer, tends to get on my nerves.

However, this Sunday was different. Saturday night I randomly woke up and felt empty inside. “There is no God,” I thought to myself, not sure where this sentiment came from but believing it nonetheless. The next morning I didn’t feel as faithless, but could not fully trust in my religion, even though I still prayed and sung throughout the Mass.

As the deacon performed the Homily, my mind drifted between listening intently to what he had to say and wondering whether I should apply for that campus job. Fortunately, I tuned in to hear a beautiful comment from our deacon.

“We seem to focus so much on who we think should be saved. Instead, let’s focus on strengthening our own faith.”

This is a really important idea for Catholics and other Christians to hear in a world where people march against gays and abortion or condemn the use of birth control. Sometimes we spend so much energy, resources and time attempting to persuade others to do “the right thing” when we could be improving our own religious dedication through prayer, service and love. I literally smiled in church, relieved to hear this statement after hearing our priests discuss the evils within our modern society every so often and how we must be the metaphorical light of the world.

Furthermore, this is an attitude someone of any race, gender, nationality, age, and yes, even religion, could adopt. Changing others is difficult, especially when dealing with a) those who do not wish to change, or b) opinions rather than fact. This does not mean abandoning our own beliefs and submitting to someone else’s views. Rather, we should concentrate on enhancing our way of life instead of attempting to change others, because no one can claim they live a perfect lifestyle.

This wasn’t the end of #quotableChurchmoments. During another part of the mass, a lector reads a list of intentions, or things we want to pray for. After each intention, we all say “Lord, hear our prayer”. This was one of the best intentions I have ever heard:

“We pray for all those who are searching for God, that they may be enlightened so that their natural goodness will shine through”.

Anyone who has studied Classicalism and Romanticism knows most religious institutions, especially the Catholic church, follow many classical beliefs, including the idea people are born evil and must be taught to be good. Contrariwise, this prayer recognizes people are children of God and therefore naturally good creatures. Beautiful.

Though these experiences have not reinstated my faith to its full health, this Sunday sermon made me hopeful for alterations in the attitude of the world and hopeful for my own future. As I look forward to college with excitement, anxiety, and some fear, I know this will be a time of change and self evaluation, of figuring out who I am and what I want. Through my own natural goodness, I can strengthen my faith and achieve my full potential in whatever I’m supposed to do on this earth.

I tried to blog yesterday, but for some reason wordpress.com was blocked on my computer? Anyway, today it seems to be working okay.

Yesterday my therapist gave me a CD to listen to entitled “Overcome Fear and Anxiety”. After going through it today, I’m not sure what to think about it.

I was surprised it included a lot of Christian references, including affirmations about God/divine spirit and many verses from the Bible. I’m religious, so it did not bother me; it just seemed weird.

To spice up the affirmations, I decided to add “bitch” to some of the end of affirmations. For example, “I am confident BITCH!” I was entirely too amused with calling a disembodied voice a bitch.

Some of the sentiments expressed are untrue. For example, the speaker stated “You cannot feel love and fear at the same time”, which is entirely false.

Then, one affirmation stated, “When we fear something enough, it can become real and attracted to us”, and I automatically thought of Amnesia, which was, to say the least, not good. Then I thought, “Oh my God I’m afraid of ghosts and demons, and now they’re going to be attracted to me? That’s not a very reassuring thought!”.

The CD itself made me a little anxious and depressed, because it forced me to think about my anxiety, stress, worries and fears. This was magnified by the fact my mind combated many of the recorded statements, accusing quite a few declarations of being ridiculously cliche.

During the CD, though I was not overcome by any intense emotion or epiphany whatsoever, my hands started shaking and my entire body was soon encompassed by this shakiness. I am not quite sure what that was all about.

Overall, I do not feel any different, though this was the first time I have used this CD, so I do not expect instant results. About a half an hour ago I experienced another anxious episode, and I really hope this tape will help, but I am only slightly optimistic.

I asked my therapist if I could listen to it while I work out, and she said yes. This is fantastic because I can motivate myself to listen to the tape, which will at the same time force me to exercise five times a week, and vice versa. Basically, killing two birds with one hand grenade.

Has anyone else used these affirmation/self help tapes? Have they worked at all?

Lately there have been a lot of debate about, well, lots of things-gun control, gay marriage, etc. And in every single instance, I believe there is always one problem at the root of every situation.

Usually, in the media, we only hear from extreme liberals and extreme conservatives, or, as my history teacher put it, “the crazies from this end and the crazies from the other end”. We could probably blame this on the media wanting the best story bla bla bla. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

Pretty much everyone knows how these extremes can sometimes be idiotic. For example, I watched a vlog on Utube yesterday (MrRepzion..you should look him up, some of his videos are very insightful), and took particular notice of the two religious-ish ones that I watched. One of course had to do with some lady calling gays “not human”. Now, I’m fairly certain that 99% of the population doesn’t believe that. Whether or not they believe in gay marriage, they aren’t as idiotic to say something like that. However, because this woman was Christian people tag her beliefs to the beliefs of all Christians.

I can relate for a fact that every Christian I have talked to about this issue has homosexual friends or relatives, and are perfectly fine with it. In fact, many of them are fine with the idea of gay marriage. Honestly, aren’t there so many other things we could be worrying about, like I don’t know (like seriously I don’t know) but I’m sure there are better things out there to worry about! Er how about that economy?

In all seriousness, people need to realize this game that the media plays and that a lot of what we see is the crazies and not the people in the middle who actually have rational thinking. Lately I’ve been getting sort of pissed with all these issues, not because I’m hating on the people and their opinions, because I truly believe that every is entitled to an opinion. However, I’m just getting pissed because Christians are unjustly being labeled for certain things, like any other group could be labeled. Obviously not all of us think, “Oh yeah, I’m Christian so I think all atheists and gays are going to hell.” No, it’s not like that.

And I’m sure not everyone gives us those labels. It probably is just, once again, the crazies that are making us ALL out to be terrible, zealous, unfeeling, unrational people. Though I have witnessed others speaking about Christians as such in my school and other places, and it takes a lot of self-control to not let it get me riled up. So let’s all just be happy, love each other, and blame the media =D

Lately, the “controversy” of today’s world that seems to be bothering me the most is the “gay marriage” thing. Is it right? Who has a say on whether people should be allowed to do it anyway?

I feel so completely divided on this topic-on any given moment of any given day, I could be on either side. Most people (from either side) would say that this is ridiculous and that either a) gay marriage is obviously perfectly fine, or b) gay marriage is essentially a sin. But I can’t help how I feel-the problem is I can’t seem to decipher what exactly is right.

On one hand, I have many gay friends, including a gay aunt (and I truly love both my aunt and her partner, who are like parents to me), and in my high school, pretty much all of the teenagers and most of the teachers support gay rights, including marriage. I don’t see much harm in it, when I’m on the liberal side of me. It’s two people who love each other-that’s essentially what marriage is. Churches of course can keep their beliefs and don’t have to perfect same-sex ceremonies, but civil marriages-not entirely bad. People are born that way, it’s not like they can just change. Besides, God made everyone in his image.

On the conflict of religious belief, I think that God believes that everyone should love each other (even when I’m vouching against gay marriage, I believe that you should treat everyone equally-I mean, God IS the one who is supposed to be handing out judgment). I just abhor how some people bash Catholics and Christians, like we’re a pit of pedophiles and gay haters. We’re not. In fact, most of the Catholics I know are either neutral or for gay marriage. It’s like the hippies of the 70’s who made it seem like everyone hated soldiers, because they were so outspoken and the media focused on them. People just seem to focus on the few Catholics and Christians that protest against gay marriage and disregard the calmer, kinder, less outspoken ones. No, just because I’m Catholic doesn’t mean that I believe all atheists and homosexuals are going to hell.

Then, on the other hand, I can’t help but think of my religion. You shouldn’t be a “cafeteria Christian”, picking and choosing what you want to believe; God states in the Bible (Old Testament, I do believe, which sometimes shows God in a very unloving way) that homosexuality is a sin. Even though God made all people in his image, there are still lots of evil-doers out there; they were just influenced by the devil. Again, I understand that for some this is a weak argument, but for me, it’s very real. To me sometimes, it’s almost like it’s against human nature. Sure, people are born that way, it’s a very sure thing. But sometimes it….it just feels that way. Marriage is supposed to be a sacred union between a man and woman, bonded forever, with the intent of purity and to raise children in the holy faith. And I believe this.

And a part of me understands homophobes, or at least the ones that don’t openly hate gays. Like my dad. He’s homophobic, but he treats gays just the same. He’s just a little “eh” about associating with gays and awkward about it. But, in the 80’s, when AIDS began, it was mostly linked to gays (the outbreak began in the gay community, and scientists have linked the beginnings to a single gay man). This disease, which took hundreds of lives within the first few months, scared lots of people, and when people aren’t entirely sure of what they are dealing with, it can bring chilling results and an attitude that most people wouldn’t normally bear. It’s like when you’re driving or walking in a bad neighborhood, keeping a captious eye out for trouble and suspecting every person who walks by you. It’s not that everyone is a thug whose going to be walking by-it’s just the fear of it that causes you to be prejudiced.

As with anything religious, the stakes are very high. Anyone who is wrong about this, well, as my history teacher said, no one can come back and tell you “Oh, you should have been a little more Jewish” or “there really is one true God who came to us through Muhammad”. No one is going to tell you, right before you die, if there isn’t a God or that you shouldn’t have been a supporter of abortion and gay rights because that was wrong. And this is exactly what makes me so hesitant to be so devoted to the cause. With the Catholics that tell me that the Bible and the way of God is always right comes this fear. It’s not so much the fear of being condemned in the afterlife-or maybe it is. It probably is. I just need to know that I am right, and finding the correct response in a sea of opinions is nearly impossible; choosing the right path, considering that they are opinions and technically no one could be completely correct.

These are just the opinions of an insignificant girl in high school. And since I’ve pretty much taken both sides, I could be attacked from either side. You can’t really tell me my opinions are wrong of course. Like so much in this life, it’s an opinion, though many people will deal with these things as if they are cold hard fact. That’s what can make the environment burdened with so much animosity.